Foreign specialists have yet to provide any concrete assistance
for the search, and rescue of the Chibok schoolgirls, military sources say.
Nigeria’s Special Forces from the Army’s 7th Division have
sighted and narrowed the search for the more than 250 abducted Chibok
schoolgirls to three camps operated by the extremist Boko Haram sect north of
Kukawa at the western corridors of the Lake Chad, senior military and
administration officials have said.
“It has been a most difficult but heroic breakthrough,” one
senior military official said in Abuja.
That claim was supported by another senior commander from
the Army’s 7th Division, the military formation created to deal with the
insurgency in the Northeast. The 7th Division is headquartered in Maiduguri,
the Borno State capital.
The breakthrough comes at a critical moment for the Nigerian
military that has faced cutting criticism over its handling of the kidnapping
of the girls more than a month ago.
The news is also key for the Maiduguri-based 7th Division a
week after a humiliating mutiny by troops of its 101 battalion who fired at the
General Officer Commanding the division, Ahmadu Mohammed, a Major General.
Maj. Gen. Mohammed escaped unhurt, but has since been
redeployed. The soldiers blamed him for the deaths of at least four of their
colleagues killed near Chibok, a remote community in Borno State where the girls
were taken captives April 14.
But military insiders said Mr. Mohammed was targeted for
daring to arrest the growing indiscipline within his troop.
The abductions have sparked international outrage, with the
United States, United Kingdom, France and Israel, providing intelligence and
surveillance assistance.
Nigerian military officials coordinating the search and
other officials in Abuja said Boko Haram insurgents split the girls into
batches and held them at their camps in Madayi, Dogon Chuku and Meri, all
around the Sector 3 operational division of the Nigerian military detachment
confronting the group’s deadly campaign.
Another source said there is a fourth camp at Kangarwa, also
in Borno State. That claim could not be independently verified.
“Our team first sighted the girls on April 26 and we have
been following their movement with the terrorists ever since,” one of our
sources said.
“That’s why we just shake our heads when people insinuate
that the military is lethargic in the search for the girls.”
The location of the abducted girls – north east of Kukawa –
opens a new insight into the logistic orientation of Boko Haram, responsible
for thousands of deaths in a five-year long insurgency. President Goodluck
Jonathan said the group has killed at least 12,000 people so far – that’s minus
the hundreds killed in a car bomb on Tuesday in Jos and the about 10 murdered
on Sunday in Kano in a suicide bombing.
But the details established by the military shows that while
the world’s attention is focused on the Sambisa forest reserves, about 330
kilometres south of Maiduguri, the terrorists mapped a complex mission that
began at Chibok, and veered north east of Sambisa, before heading to west of
Bama and east of Konduga.
With the sighting, officials fear that Boko Haram militants
may be seeking to create new options of escape all the way to Lo-gone-Et Chari
in Cameroon to its Southeast, Lake Chad to its east and Diffa in Niger Republic
to its north, providing a multiple escape options in the event of hostile
ground operations against it.
Notwithstanding the sighting, the government is said not to
be considering the use of force against the extremists, a choice informed by
concerns for the safety of the students
.
But with growing local and international pressure, a likely
option may be for the authorities to enter into talks with the group, whose
leader, Abubakar Shekau, in a May 12 video broadcast, called for dialogue and
“prisoner” swap with the government.
The government has ruled out that option in the open but
knowledgeable sources in Abuja hinted at a possible “twin track” approach that
includes open rejection and a closet engagement.
“That option is not as bitter as you think in the face of
the alternatives confronting us,” the source who has deep insight on the
thinking of the administration, said.
“Government is working hard to free the girls in less than
one week, possibly before end of this week,” the source said.
Defence spokesperson, Chris Olukolade, a Major General, told
PREMIUM TIMES he would not comment on the ongoing rescue operation.
“You don’t expect me to tell you that the girls have been
sighted or have not been sighted,” Mr. Olukolade said. “I will only say our
team are working hard and taking note of every information provided to ensure
that our girls are rescued without delay.”
Civic leader Shehu Sani who fired a letter to the Sultan of
Sokoto and leader of Nigeria’s Muslim, however told PREMIUM TIMES that what
must be done urgently is for the Sultan to summon all the influential Islamic
clerics with credibility in the north and use them to reach out to the
insurgents to release the girls.
“As far as I know this has not been done and to expect the
committee [headed by former army intelligence chief, Major General Sani Bako]
now working to determine the situation of the Chibok abduction to help on this
will be a waste of time,” Mr. Sani said.
No comments:
Post a Comment